2009 Recipient

Since 1985, The Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD) [link to http://www.lapovertydept.org/] has created performance work that connects lived experience to the social forces that shape the lives and communities of people living in poverty. LAPD is committed to creating high-quality, challenging performances that express the realities, hopes, and dreams of people who live and work in Los Angeles’ Skid Row, and is dedicated to building community and to the artistic and personal development of its members.

Los Angeles Poverty Department was founded in 1985 by director, actor, activist, and writer John Malpede. At its inception, LAPD was the first performance group in the nation made up principally of homeless people. LAPD is dedicated to building community on Skid Row, Los Angeles. Since 1985, the company has offered performance workshops that are free and open to the Skid Row community — partnering with numerous social service and advocacy groups, including SRO Housing, Inc.; LA Community Action Network; The Downtown Women’s Action Coalition; St.Vincent DePaul Center; The Salvation Army’s Women’s and Men’s drug recovery programs; and the Inner City Law Center.

A theater-without-walls for people living in Los Angeles’ inner city, LAPD has also partnered with communities and arts organizations across the United States to create powerful original works that speak to a range of political issues. Extended residencies have been held in Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami, San Francisco, Houston, and Minneapolis, among other cities.

LAPD’s perspective of using performance as a socially inclusive process has galvanized the communities in which they work and generated awards and acclaim nationwide. In 1999, the company received Theater LA’s Ovation Award for "Sustained Achievement in the use of Theater Arts to Impact the Community" and in September 2003, Malpede received Cornerstone Theater’s Bridge Award for outstanding community-based theater.